Dr. Jacob Wilbur Velie was born on February 9, 1829, in Amsterdam, New York.

He was a dentist and naturalist. He was raised and educated at Hammondsport, New York and graduated from the Geneva Medical College. He left Hammondsport and his medical practice in 1854 to move to Rock Island, Illinois, where he worked as a dentist for eleven years. He then moved to Bath, New York, and ran a drug store. He was interested in natural history as a boy, and after achieving financial independence, he gave up his profession to devote himself to natural history. In 1870, he moved to Chicago to teach at the Chicago Academy of Sciences. He also served as secretary, librarian, and curator of the Chicago Academy of Sciences from 1870 to 1893. He moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, in 1892.

In 1860, he married Adelia Noble (1832–1883). He died on October 21, 1908, in Saint Joseph, Michigan.

Montreal architectural firm.

Walter Vaughan was born in Wales where he was privately educated. Although he was called to the English bar, he never practiced. In 1890 he came to Canada and entered the legal department of the Canadian Pacific Railway in Montreal. Vaughan remained there for seven years in the employ of Sir William Van Horne, whose biographer he became. From 1907 to 1918 Vaughan was Bursar of McGill University. After spending time in England and California, he returned to Montréal where he died in 1922. He is author of the book, The Life and Work of Sir William Van Horne (1920).

Born in Beddeck, Nova Scotia, Susan Cameron received her B.A. from McGill in 1895, and joined the staff of Royal Victoria College in 1899 as a lecturer in English. She served as Acting Warden of the College from 1905 to 1907 and as Assistant Warden from 1907 to 1918, when she left to marry the University Bursar, Walter Vaughan. Widowed in 1922, she returned to Royal Victoria College in 1928 as Assistant Warden, and served as Warden from 1931 until her retirement in 1937. Cameron passed away in 1961.